Cornbread Biscuits

Are you ready for some turkey?  Bust out those stretchy pants, because tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Not that I condone overeating.  Let's be honest.  Most of America is getting ready to gorge themselves with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, yams, pie, etc, etc, etc.  Oh  yeah, and bread.  Fresh dinner rolls are a tradition for many families on Thanksgiving.  But this year, challenge tradition with these amazing cornbread biscuits.

I love cornbread (you have to try my favorite low fat cornbread!), but I never even thought of making cornbread biscuits until I saw this recipe in Cook's Country.  I was intrigued.  And because the recipe came from America's Test Kitchen, I knew it was going to turn out great.  In my experience, biscuits can be finicky, and I've had my share of miscues (most recently, last weekend).  But these biscuits were perfect.  Tall, flaky, buttery, with a great cornmeal taste.  

Sausage & Cheddar Biscuit Balls (Bonus: Homemade Buttermilk Bisquick)

Many of the foods I make don't show up on my blog for quite some time.  There are many things I love that just haven't made it here yet.  They'll get there day in the sun eventually!  But this is not one of those foods.  I made these sausage and cheddar biscuit balls last night to eat while watching a little (OK, a lot) of March Madness, and I loved them so much I just had to share them today so you can make them ASAP, and enjoy them while you are watching a little, or a lot, of basketball this weekend.

I've had similar sausage balls before, but had never made them before yesterday.  I've had a recipe bookmarked in an old church cookbook for a while.  Although I like sausage, I don't eat it very often.  Actually, I take that back.  I don't cook it very often.  Sausage happens to be one of my favorite pizza toppings, and I eat pizza more than I would care to admit!  I finally decided yesterday it was time for me to cook up some sausage.  This original recipe (which, incidentally, happens to be from my Aunt Kathy) calls for Bisquick.  I haven't bought Bisquick in years.  I have discovered that it is cheaper to make my own version of it, and it takes only a few minutes to do.  So as a bonus today, I'm also including a recipe for a homemade version of Bisquick.  I guess you caught me in a good mood; it's Friday, it's March Madness, and it's a beautiful day!